Interview with John Lloyd Young of Jersey Boys’

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By Ed SymkusMore Content Now

The Herald News, Fall River, MA

By Ed SymkusMore Content Now

Posted Jun. 16, 2014 at 11:14 AM

By Ed SymkusMore Content Now

Posted Jun. 16, 2014 at 11:14 AM

» Social News

John Lloyd Young’s professional career is all over the place. He’s acted in numerous off-Broadway productions, he’s sung at the Café Carlyle, he has a new R&B-flavored album called “My Turn ...”, his pop art sculptures are represented by the Hamilton-Selway Gallery in West Hollywood, and he was recently appointed by Barack Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. One other note: He originated – and won a Tony Award for – the role of the Four Seasons lead singer Frankie Valli in the Broadway production of “Jersey Boys,” has played the part about 1,400 times, and is now starring as Valli in Clint Eastwood’s film version. Young, 38, a Brown University graduate, spoke about a little bit of everything by phone from Minneapolis last week.

Q. What were you doing just before you got the play and then just before you got the movie?

A. Just before I got the play I had great success with a stage adaptation of Chaim Potok’s novel “The Chosen.” It was a very happy time for me as an actor because I played the Hassidic character Danny Saunders, a role that’s very different from me. And I played opposite Theodore Bikel, who was theater royalty. I learned a lot from him. I did the first two years of “Jersey Boys” on Broadway, then went on to other things. But before the movie started ramping up, the “Jersey Boys” producers on Broadway asked me if I wanted to come back for a stint, and I said yes. So I was playing the role on Broadway again at precisely the time when Clint Eastwood got attached. He was going around the country looking at different productions, and he came to a matinee performance of it in New York. I met him after the show, he told me he totally enjoyed my performance, I told him I was glad he was there, and the next time I met him was on his set. That [talk] had functioned as my audition and I didn’t even know it.

Q. When you do a play, you can tweak things every night. What were your thoughts about getting to do one film performance that would be captured for posterity?

A. It was actually a real relief. When you do a stage performance you’re tied to one script and it’s the same direction and the same staging every time. You get to know your character very well, but there’s a sort of pressure building up. You get new insights into your character but you still have the same script, and you have no place to express them. So when I got the chance to do the film I was just so relieved that I would have a place to put those extra insights. I was able to let that character psychologically emerge more than I could onstage.

Page 2 of 2 - Q. Was it a big difference working with a film director rather than a stage director?

A. Absolutely. When you’re building something in theater you try things different ways during rehearsal; you do scenes over and over again until you and the director and the cast are satisfied, then you kind of set it in stone and take that to the stage, and it doesn’t change much. With the film, we rehearsed for 40 days. You get the raw material and try things in different ways, and then the director and his editors choose the pieces that work for them and they end up telling your story, which to me was fascinating to see.

Q. Do you think of yourself as an actor who can sing or a singer who can act?

A. I can do both, but I prefer to do them separately. I prefer to either be in a concert, singing songs, or to act a role. The thing about “Jersey Boys” is that the Broadway experience afforded me the opportunity to do both in the same show. I was playing a singer. So when I was singing I was in concert or a recording studio. I didn’t have to do that tricky thing where you’re singing lyrics as though they’re a scene, like in an operatic way. I don’t have any problem with that. I just don’t enjoy doing it as much as I enjoy acting by itself and singing by itself.

Q. There’s a scene in the movie where Frankie plays directly to the red-headed girl in a club. When you were onstage, did you find yourself playing to audience members or feeding on the audience’s energy during songs?

A. One of the reasons people love “Jersey Boys” so much is that the audience is a character in the story. When you’re in concert the audience that’s there that night is your stand-in for the concert audience that you’re imagining in the play. So as the character Frankie, you’re actually playing off the audience that’s in front of you, and it deeply involves them.

Q. Are the film offers already lining up?

A. The doors to those sorts of things are definitely opening, and I’m looking forward to see what the future holds.